Learning ModuleHow does injustice affect communities?

Communities are shaped by more than just geographic location. Complex histories and experiences, government rules, policies, and systems are all factors that can shape a community. Especially when governments use their power unfairly, it can disrupt daily life, traditions, and in extreme cases, even result in the loss of lives. The Holodomor was a devastating example of this, as millions of people in Ukraine suffered and died due to policies designed to control and punish their communities.

In this learning module, we’ll examine how authoritarian policies and injustice affected communities in Ukraine during the Holodomor, and the significance on identities, citizenship, and heritage in Canada.

Canada has one of the world’s largest Ukrainian communities in the world. Since the late 1800’s, more than 1.4 million Ukrainians have settled in Canada. In most cases, they arrived in large waves in response to government policies or major world events. One of the largest waves included survivors of the Holodomor.

Holodomor is a Ukrainian word that refers to death inflicted by starvation. It comes from the Ukrainian words holod, which means hunger or starvation, and mor, which means a torturous death. 

From 1932 to 1933, while Ukraine was part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), millions of Ukrainians were deliberately starved as a result of government policies and actions. This famine was not a natural disaster, but rather a targeted act of violence by the Soviet government against the Ukrainian people.

For decades, information about what happened was deliberately denied and hidden from the international community. This deepened the injustice experienced by those who died, the survivors, and their descendants.

Like many nations, Ukraine has a complex history. The region was first settled around 45,000 BC and in the 5^th century, Greek historians documented the first accounts of the region’s fertile land, its people, and their unique customs. In the early 800s, the city of Kyiv was settled and ruled by the Kyivan Princes for over 300 years.

In the centuries that followed, many different groups tried to seize and take control of the rich land, but the Ukrainian people continuously fought for their identity and the right to maintain their language, culture, and spirit of independence.

By the mid 1800’s, ruler of the Russian Empire, Catherine II, sought to destroy the Ukrainian language and culture. This resulted in Ukraine being divided among empires between 1800 and 1917. 

• The largest part of the land was ruled by the Russian Empire and resulted in an end to Ukrainian self-rule, the restriction of the Ukrainian language, and the denial of Ukrainian recognition as a separate nation. 
• Western Ukraine was under Austro-Hungarian rule, where Ukrainians had greater cultural freedoms.

Despite repression, Ukrainian writers and activists kept national identity alive.

In 1917, the Russian Revolution brought many changes to the area, and the Ukrainian state briefly achieved independence in early 1918. Battles raged throughout the former Russian Empire as competing armies fought to dominate the region. As they passed through the countryside, they confiscated grain and seized property. A consequence of this was a smaller, lesser-known famine that reached its peak in 1921 – 1922. It resulted in over 700,000 deaths in Ukraine.

In 1922, Ukraine was conquered by the Soviet Red Army and incorporated into the newly formed Soviet Union. Russian culture once again dominated, but resistance to outside control remained strong, particularly in rural areas. Under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin, the New Economic Policy (NEP) allowed some freedom for Ukrainian village populations to operate private farms and run small businesses.

Joseph Stalin’s rise to power as the leader of the Soviet Union at the end of the 1920s marked an end to this freedom, and instead brought about a period of brutal repression, collectivization, and destruction.

Collectivization was a policy implemented by the Soviet government to seize privately-owned agricultural land to force consolidation into state-owned collective farms. The purpose was to transform the Soviet Union into an industrial power by exporting grain to acquire foreign currency to buy industrial machinery. Peasants saw it as a modern version of serfdom.

Stalin’s final targeted Ukrainian group were farmers, who were commonly referred to as peasants, or seliany in Ukrainian. They represented up to 80 percent of the population and proudly contributed to the preservation and development of Ukrainian language, culture, and the stability of village life, traditions, and faith.

Under strict Soviet government policies, their property, equipment, and livestock were confiscated, and private farms were reorganized into collective farms, meaning they were forced to work under state control and were given unreasonably high quotas to meet for production.

In the early 1930’s, regions across the former Soviet Union (USSR) experienced widespread famine deliberately caused by these Soviet policies. The forced collectivization of farms, the seizure of grain by the state, and the restrictions on movement, prevented people from leaving famine-affected areas.

Most scholars estimate that the Holodomor caused approximately 3.9 million excess deaths in Soviet Ukraine between 1932 and 1934. However, accurate records were not kept; many deaths went unregistered, and documents were destroyed. Victims were often buried in mass graves or died far from home. Recent research using archival records suggests during the harvest of 1932–1933, more than 5 million people died from starvation across the USSR.

For decades, the Soviet state actively denied the famine. Despite efforts to erase the truth, the lived experiences of survivors and their families endured. These accounts provided evidence of the widespread suffering, the policies that caused mass starvation, and the lasting trauma carried by Ukrainian communities.

Although millions of Ukrainians died during the Holodomor, some survived and later escaped, with many eventually settling in Canada.

The Government of Canada officially recognized the Holodomor as a genocide in 2008, and Holodomor Memorial Day is recognized annually on the fourth Saturday of November.

Additionally, most school boards in Canada commemorate Holodomor Memorial Day in Schools on the fourth Friday of November. Holodomor Remembrance Day in Schools is commemorated annually on April 16th during April Genocide Remembrance, Condemnation and Prevention month.

Complete the following check for understanding to determine where you are in your learning. Select the correct answer, then press the Check Answer button to see how you did.

To extend your knowledge, you will explore a selection of primary and secondary sources that will help you understand the human impact of events during and after the Holodomor and consider the impact this has had on Canadian society.

Complete the following activities, then share your findings in a method of your choice. You may choose to write a short reflective essay, create a digital slide deck, or design an infographic to present your analysis.

In this activity, your task is to analyze the human impact of the Holodomor by analyzing a quote from a witness, survivor or descendant. Review each quote, then select one and answer the reflection questions that follow.

Reflection questions

In this activity, your task is to explore the connection between government policies in Ukraine, the decision to emigrate, and the impact on Canada.

The first Ukrainians arrived in Canada in the late 1800s. Since then, large groups have arrived in what are referred to as the six waves of Ukrainian immigration.

Examine the following table:

Ukrainian immigrants in Canada

Note: Due to the social and political unrest before World War I, many Ukrainians who immigrated during the first wave were incorrectly recorded as being Russian, Polish, or Austrian when they arrived in Canada, and it is estimated that a more accurate figure is closer to 200,000 (Marunchak, 1970)